Life is a highway , no , life is the open road !!!: Day 69

September 2

So here I sit in Englishtown , the end of the line it seems , instructions handed out as we got in for Ferry crossing tomorrow and packing of our belongings as the truck that has been our home away from home will nor accompany us to Newfoundland, it now stands almost empty , rather a sad sight to see. I have all of my belonging here in the tent with me and have to sort out what will go where , ship , Argentia or Saint Johns .

Bud is here with the grew that did the Arctic tour , organizing everything as two small vans will replace the truck. Hamburgers were prepared by the staff today and we celebrated the last birthday of the trip Murray's so we had cake again , we had a lot of birthdays and a lot of cake during this trip !!!

Tomorrow is a short 40 km ride to the ferry to Argentia which will not sail until 1.30 AM so we will have lots of spare time on our hands , the tropical storm is heading on a more northernly course then originally plotted so we will only be affected by it on Saturday while we sail , better then while we ride and it is looking like we might get a bit of sunshine for our last riding day , to soon to really tell .

I am looking forward to seeing Evelyn in Saint Johns as she is coming to see me arrive, it will be nice to share it with her !!!

I didn't post last night as there has no internet reception, so today I’m putting both days up.

It has been hot on this trip at times , but today felt like the hottest !!, right from the start , actually it started last night as it was uncomfortable to sleep in the tents even though it was very windy. And this morning right from the start at 7 AM it was already 25 degrees and humid with a powerful wind blowing, we set out and did the short side trip to stay on the coast, it warned it was hilly , well they were not kidding as there was a couple of short but really steep hill to climb that were painful !!!!

From there we joined up with the Cabot Trail and wound our way along the coast stoping in Ingonish for breakfast and then went on to our big climb of the day Smoky Mountain , it was not as bad a grade as yesterday but it still was a good long climb and the wind at times made it interesting , not a lot to look at going up , but coming down it was spectacular , the wind made the descent a challenge with a few people having trouble, we had stopped at one point to take pictures on a turn ( hard stop to make ) and when we got going rounding the turn were presented with a very steep down but the gusting wind was blowing so hard we had to pedal to go down the hill !!!

The rest of the ride was done against a hard head and cross wind but we did not complain as it at least helped cool the body a bit.

I am not sure if I will have internet availability between here and Saint Johns or if my computer will be available to me so stay tuned and we shall see.

Total ridden today: 107.9 - Average speed : 18.6 - Ridding time: 5.47